Clear Sky Chart
Sponsors
Sponsors are remarkably wise and kind people who have contributed money to help defray the costs of generating clear sky charts from CMC data. They have my deepest thanks:
Why be a sponsor?
Aside from knowing that you're helping north-american astronomers observe more often and the sheer joy of altruism, it gives me an oppourtunity to thank you in some small ways.It seems appropriate to me to give more computing resources to sponsored charts -- after all, sponsors are helping to pay precisely for that.
It currently takes about two hours for me to update all chart pages after a CMC forecast update. So some charts get updated sooner than others. The 'update rank' or order by which I generate charts is listed in the 'techno-geek' fine print at the bottom of the legend pages. I nominally choose to update the most used charts first.
To thank sponsors for their patronage, I will be updating sponsored charts first and then all other charts.
I may release to sponsored-charts first, cpu-time-intensive features that I can't afford to generate for all charts. (Then later to all charts as I upgrade computers.) One example is that I am interpolating, to hourly resolution, the seeing forecast for the 30 most sponsored charts.
What does sponsorship pay for?
More importantly, sponsorship does not pay for the basic data from which I generate the charts. That data is offered to everyone for free by the Canadian Meteorological Centre though their public web page.Sponsorship does reduce some of the costs of internet access, web hosting, computers, software development and caffiene that I use to generate clear sky charts.
How to be a sponsor.
No amount is too small. There are two ways- Mail me a check. Please do not use the address printed in the February 2004 issue of Sky & Telescope page 69; it is wrong even with Stuart's correction. Instead, please Email me for the correct snail mail address.
US dollar and personal checks are fine. Note that postage to me from the USA is us$0.75 and from Canada is can$0.54.
A check gets the greatest amount of your sponsorship to me but is slow.
- Or click on a button below to send money from your Paypal account or credit card.
- what name you'd like credited on this page. I can also link your web page, if you like.
- The names of any charts you'd like to give update preference to. (Each US$1.00 gives one chart preference for about 7 days.)
How much does it cost?
There is no minimum sponsorship amount. I am greatful for any support. I also do not send past sponsors follow-up emails asking for more money.But to be fair to all sponsors, I acknowledge sponsors on this page, and on chart pages they've chosen to support, for a time proprotional to their sponsorship. It works out to us$0.137 per chart per day for non-commercial sponsors. (I convert Canadian dollar sponsorships to USD at the current rate.)
Some commercial sponsors like me to display logos or animated logos. They cost me a bit more to arrange and host. If you'd like a logo displayed, email me for details.
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